The Highs and Lows of Website Design

I know a little something about website design. I'm not an expert, but I can usually manage to create something that, if not fancy, is functional and reasonably attractive. I've been maintaining a few sites for the past couple of years, but it's been a long time since I actually tried my hand at designing from scratch. Lately I've been kind of thinking that maybe I would like to get more into the website design side of things, maybe get some more training and make it more a main part of my career. And then my current job suddenly presented me with an opportunity to start designing a new site. I was really looking forward to it. Until I tried to start. And then I realized that: a) I've forgotten a lot of my CSS, and b) What I do remember may be out-of-date.

So that was depressing. And then tonight I started fiddling with one of my sites and I suddenly remembered something else that I'd forgotten about designing websites: the emotional turmoil. The absolute frustration you feel when something isn't working, and you don't know why. You check and re-check your code until the screen starts to go blurry. And you curse your browsers (all three of them) for their stubborn contrariness. You agonize for hours, and then suddenly you find the problem. A forgotten quotation mark, a stray semi-colon... or maybe, as in my case, Firefox is behaving stupidly. And then everything falls into place. Relief and happiness wash over you as you look at your screen: finally, finally, you have managed to make the menu move 8 pixels to the left.

I'm telling you, it's an emotional roller-coaster. Remind me again why I want to do this more?